As an engineer, my professional life is governed by numbers: how many kilo­grams of fuel will it take to perform a maneuver, how many degrees should we rotate the spacecraft towards the Sun, etc.

My life as a myeloma patient is also dominated by numbers: IgA and kappa light chain readings, Revlimid ^[1] (lenalidomide) and dexamethasone ^[2] (Decadron) doses, and so on.

With this focus on numbers, it is probably not surprising that I tend to remember dates. For instance, I always mark the anniversary of my stem cell transplant.

Another key date for me, as for many other myeloma patients, is that of my diagnosis. In a way, this doesn’t make much sense, as nothing physical really changed then. I had been feeling ill for quite a few months before my diagnosis, and would continue to do so for many months afterwards. However, the significance of diagnosis is presumably that it marks a known, definite point in the transition from not having cancer to having it.

Like just about everyone who has myeloma, I have no idea when the first of my plasma cells went bad and my cancer began. I couldn't guess that date to the nearest year ... or even the nearest decade. I therefore certainly can’t mark that event in any way. However, diagnosis is something that you know about. I remember the date every year, even though it certainly wasn’t the happiest of days!

Basically, the number of years since diagnosis serves as one marker of how long I have made it with myeloma. Other such markers are New Year’s Day and my birthday. As a cancer survivor, each birthday becomes an indicator of success that you have made it through another year. The American Cancer Society’s slogan “The official sponsor of birthdays” reflects this. That’s how I have felt ever since diagnosis.

I must admit, though, that since I’ve been doing so well for so long now, there is lately an element of “How on Earth did I get to be so old?” superimposed on the “I made it another year!” But it’s a not a bad problem to have.

This year was quite a benchmark: March 8 marked 10 years since my diagnosis.

At the time, I really did not expect to still be around at this point. The data I saw online at that time always referred to a median overall survival of three years. I was still very “green” then about multiple myeloma, which was a disease that I had never heard of. Also, I was feeling quite ill, so I was not doing all that well at focusing on the information I was reading.

I was so confused in those early days that I did not even know how to describe myeloma to others. The oncologist/hematologist who coordinated my initial testing and diagnosis described it as “a disorder of the blood.” I therefore called it that in an email I sent out to my colleagues right after diagnosis. I imagine that they must have thought that I was in denial about having cancer. I really wasn’t; I was just confused!

It was certainly an overwhelming time, with a feeling of great uncertainty as to what the future might hold. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but it was definitely not to still be working and leading an essentially normal life 10 years later.

I marked the tenth anniversary of my diagnosis in a way that makes perfect sense to a space enthusiast: I flew to London to see an exhibition of Soviet spacecraft in the Science Museum. Most of these have never been exhibited outside Russia before, and the exhibition closed on March 13, so it seemed the ideal opportunity.

It was a thrill to see the lunar lander that was the Soviet competitor to Apollo, but in the end never flew. In fact, its existence was a secret for two decades. I have seen photos of it, but I never imagined that I would be able to see it “in the flesh.” Seeing it on March 8 was quite an experience: I sat in front of it for ages with a goofy grin on my face. I must have looked faintly ridiculous.

I don’t have any profound insights to impart on this anniversary. In that respect, it reminds me of another space enthusiast, the noted broadcaster Walter Cronkite.

He was friends with the early astronauts such as John Glenn, as well as with President Kennedy, and covered the space program throughout its early days. He even hoped to fly on the Space Shuttle before NASA cancelled the Journalist in Space program following the loss of “Challenger.”

Cronkite was a broadcasting legend, but even he was somewhat lost for words during the live coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Cronkite’s comments to his co-anchor, ex-astronaut Wally Schirra, right after the lunar module touched down run as follows: “Man on the Moon! Oh boy. Phew. Boy!”

In the current circumstances, I don’t think I can do any better than that: “Ten years! Oh boy. Phew. Boy!”